Patch 4.3 Interviews, Blue Posts, Diablo III Beta, Art Gallery Update

Update - Clarified a few misquotes apparently, thankfully everything can be blamed on chaud.

Interviews: Warcraft After Cataclysm
Tom Chilton and Greg Street have been making the rounds again with interviews on IGN and Gamasutra.

Patch 4.3

If you add up all of the Deathwing encounter stages, it will be the longest fight in the game.

Each stage of the fight will take place in a different location and offer some loot.

The encounter starts at Wyrmrest Temple, progressing toward the players being on Deathwing's back while he is flying toward The Maelstrom.

The new five man encounters will build up to the Deathwing fight, similar to how the Icecrown five man instances built up to the Lich King.

To combat the complaints of armor always looking the same, there is a sub-lead who is in charge of guiding the art team to produce new styles not found in the game yet.

After Cataclysm

More armor customization could be coming in the future; Transmogrification was a solution that could be finished in time for Patch 4.3.

After Patch 4.3, and the world event, the team is going to focus on keeping players entertained and enjoying the game as well as new and potentially returning players.

On Mists of Pandaria: "Most of the time when we do anything panda-related it's going to be a comic book or a figurine or something like that."

There are more people that played World of Warcraft but no longer play World of Warcraft than currently play World of Warcraft

They believe that each spec plays like a separate class, making the game feel as if there are 30 classes.

Player created content is still in the back of their minds because of how well it worked in Starcraft II. Developing tools for players would take a lot of work, but the reward would be great as well.

Blue Posts

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Worgen Mounts
These mounts are mainly being added to even up the number of mounts Alliance players can get, compared to Horde players. Mount collectors and those of you interested in going for the mount achievement have been asking for this for a while, and the additional horses will address that issue.

Transmogrification: Incomplete tier sets
This is going to be half the fun for a lot of people looking forward to Transmogrification; finding matching sets and combinations that look awesome together

While it's too early to say for sure, it's possible that after this feature launches, there will be a number of items that people request become available to Transmogrify. We're going to monitor this feedback and hopefully be able to build on the feature based on that, however, that's not to say every item people ask for will suddenly appear in the game. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Three Talent Specs
Indeed, as Xarthat said, we're still really keen for players to put a lot of thought and decision into their character's chosen talent specs.

Sure, it would be handy to have more specs lined up to swap in or out when faced with a different situation, but right now we feel that your talent spec(s) should be something you choose, maybe refine over time, and hopefully pwn with. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Diablo III Beta Opt In
It is almost time for Diablo III Beta, Blizzard posted another beta opt in reminder on the official blog and DiabloFans has some additional leaked gameplay to go with the screenshots below.

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker)

Interested in signing up for an advance look at Diablo’s coming invasion of Sanctuary? To be eligible to participate in the Diablo III beta test, you need an active Battle.net account with any Blizzard game title attached to it. If you don’t already have an account, it’s easy to create one. Once you’ve set up a Battle.net account, or if you’ve already got one, you can access it by visiting http://us.battle.net/en/ and clicking the Account button on the upper right. Then, to opt into the beta, just click the Games & Codes section of your Account Management page, and then select the Beta Profile Settings option from the drop-down menu. You’ll be prompted to download the System Check beta opt-in application; running it will opt you in to the Diablo III beta. If your system specifications change, you can run the System Check application again to update your information.

While running the System Check application doesn’t guarantee you a place in the Diablo III beta, we wish you luck and hope to see you in Sanctuary.

FAQ:How are beta test participants selected from the opt-in pool?
Beta testers are chosen according to their system specifications and other factors, including an element of luck. Our goal is to have a good variety of system types to best test compatibility.

Will there be any other ways to get into the beta besides the opt-in?
We’ll very likely be providing beta entry giveaways through various promotions on our sites, as well as through our official fansites. We’ll have information available on these promotions as they approach.

How many players do you plan to invite to the beta test?
The number of players we invite will be based on our testing needs. If during the course of testing we determine we need more players to participate, we’ll invite more.

What game content will be available in the beta?
You’ll be able to try out all five character classes and experience the early stages of Diablo III from the start of the game through the Skeleton King encounter. You’ll be able to interact with new and returning characters in New Tristram and fight the reawakened evils emanating from the cursed Tristram Cathedral.

Will the PvP arenas be available in the beta?
We don’t plan to include the PvP arenas in the beta test.

How long will the beta test last?
We have not determined an exact date for the end of the beta test. We will notify participants when the beta test is nearing completion.

Will the Diablo III Auction House be available in the beta?
We currently plan to test the functionality of the Diablo III gold-based auction house sometime after the initial beta launch.

Will Mac users be able to participate in the beta?
Yes, Mac users will be able to participate in the beta at the same time as Windows users.

There really needs to be either 3 talent trees, or subsets within 2 talent specs.. i.e. 1 healer/tank and 1 dps then split the healer/tank and dps specs further into two sets for pve/pve variations... atm I am respeccing every day to heal my raid and then to heal 3v3 arena. 2 resto specs doesnt work, for things like daily quests and general dpsing when necessary (pug raids/BH/some rated bg)

There are more people that played World of Warcraft, but no longer play World of Warcraft, than the number of people that currently play World of Warcraft. They want to lower the barrier to entry and find some way to bring back players that no longer play.

Acceptance is important. To the people say nothing is wrong with current wow, there's some proof.

While I probably agree with that claim, it was made by someone at Gamasutra named Greg McClanahan, not Chilton or Street. I don't think it belongs among the bullet points.

This is a good point and should be reiterated so that it is removed from the current list, as it's current placement makes it appear as something Blizzard is intending to resolve when they didn't even acknowledge it.

They need to create some tools for terrain editing, they could just take noggit and make it more user freindly, pay the person who originally created it, and it wouldn't take more than a few weeks with 3-4 people working on it. That way new BG's and Arenas would be added on a regular basis. I hope they don't just say they would like to do it, but never actually do it.

[email protected] thinking people quit because content was too accessable to others. It's like the exact opposite to what is likely true. People have left because the game is the same and even the kind of people who play call of duty don't clock up as many hours as people do in wow.

I don't know why people are taking what he said as if we've been totally wrong in assuming mists of pandaria is the next expansion.

What he gave is a non-answer.

Just read over what he said again. If you've read the actual interview you know that he didn't answer the question asked at all. He was asked if the rumors were over hyped and he responded by saying how they traditionally have handled the pandaren in the past. If anything his non-answer is an even stronger hint that we should be expecting that mists of pandaria really is something big.

i actually suggested the player made content idea thing to a gm once when i played
i said that a world maker thing would be pretty cool, with like terrain editing and npc/prop/gizmo placement and such. You would be able to send down a character to the zone and make specific changes.

With a tool to outline the area and make it so you can actually make a map of the zone, like the ones in game.

It would be very user friendly and purely cosmetic, with servers like setup like minecraft.

He responded with something along the lines of "We cannot use the exact idea due to legal reasons, but it is a good idea, well keep it in the memory bank "

i doubt this has anything to do with a random gm question, but maybe it did D: